Did You Know

Australia has no official national animal, but the red kangaroo is the unofficial acknowledged, along with the Emu. Both are on the national coat of arms. They represent moving forward, because neither can walk backward easily. 95% of the world's opals are mined in Australia.

Largest Picture in the World

It is almost the size of a football field. of course it was done by a German and it a panorama of Dresden, Germany. The site allows you to click on individual shots, like a statue, and the camera zooms in to show the detail.  LINK

Fascinating statistics: It was taken with a 400 mm lens camera and is a composite of 1,665 photos each about 21 megapixels in size. A robotic stand was used to capture the city in a rotation that took 172 minutes to complete. A  computer with 4 terabytes of hard disk space took 94 hours combine the individual photos together. Not sure why anyone would want to do such a thing, except for posterity or just so I might have something to share with you.

What's in a Name

Have you ever driven a Chevy? There are many stories and articles that mention Chevvie, Chevie, and Chevy and even Shevvie. The spelling of Chevy was not standardized until Chevrolet introduced the Chevy II in the early 1960s and officially approved that spelling.

Happy Friday

The art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.

I plan to let go of yesterday and hold on to a Happy Friday!

What's in a Name

Adobe founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke were working for Xerox during the late 70s and early 80s, and living in Los Altos, CA, and Adobe Creek just happens to run through the town. The creek was named for the nearby house of a 19th Century governor.

Vaseline

Chemist Robert Chesebrough at the 22, in 1859, left his father’s dry goods business to try the oil industry. He found men working on oil rigs were plagued by what they called “rod wax,” a kind of gooey jelly that would get into machinery and cause it to seize up. Chesebrough noticed that the workers often smeared the substance on burns and rough skin and that it appeared to help in the healing process, so he brought some of the stuff home.

He spent the next 10 years experimenting on it and refined the rod wax down to the clear, smeary petroleum jelly we now know today. He applied the goo to self-inflicted wounds to track their healing process.

He began marketing Vaseline (supposedly a mash-up of the German word for water, vasser, and the Greek word for olive oil, ‘e’laion) in 1870. He patented the product in the US in 1872 and formed the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, based out of Brooklyn, in 1875. According to stories, he was at first unable to find any pharmacists willing to take a chance on the weird, greasy stuff, so he traveled the countryside, snake oil salesman style, preaching the magic of Vaseline.

It worked, probably because Vaseline was kind of magic: People used it for everything from rescuing chapped skin and protecting baby bottoms from diaper rash to preserving eggs. Long-distance swimmers rubbed it on themselves to save body heat; American Commander Robert Peary brought Vaseline with him on his arctic adventures because it was one of the few things that wouldn’t freeze.

By the late 1880s, Vaseline was selling nationwide at a rate of a jar a minute.

According to posthumous reports, he swallowed three spoonfuls of it every day. Once, when he contracted pleurisy in his 50s, he had his nurse rub him down with Vaseline every day. He, obviously recovered and died at the age of 96.

The Chesebrough Manufacturing Company merged in 1955 with Pond’s, the makers of popular cold creams, to become Chesebrough-Pond’s; 32 years later, in 1987, the company sold out to massive personal care company Unilever.

Little Book, Little Price

Amazon has created a sweet spot for many would-be authors. It now offers Amazon Singles, which allows writers, thinkers, scientists, and others to submit original material of 5,000 - 30,000 words for publication. These relatively short works, beginning at about 30 pages, allow those folks who do not have enough information to fill a book, but more than might fit in a magazine, to get published. Pricing is intended to fall between $.99 and $4.99. This niche fits nicely with the current short attention span of the internet generation, who want to finish a book on the commute to work. or become an an almost expert on the latest technology or scientific process. Many 'How To' books fit nicely into this length. Taken to the extreme, I can visualize describing the history of the world on one page as we progress back to petroglyphs.

Think

Milking It

For years I have been buying milk in half gallons. That way, I use it up before it goes bad. Last year I noticed the the gallon size was a few cents cheaper than a half gallon. The spread continued to increase. Last week, the gallon size was less than half the cost of the half gallon. This means I can buy a gallon and throw half of it away and still come out ahead (not that I plan to do it.) Not sure what has prompted this change, but is something to watch for the next time you are shopping. The store is my local Walmart. A trick my mother taught me is to put the remaining milk in the freezer if you are planning to be away for a while. Freezing does not harm the milk or make it taste any different. However, it may take 24 hours or more to completely thaw.

The Telephone

During the 1870s, engineers were working to find a way to send multiple messages over one telegraph wire at the same time. Alexander Graham Bell was reading a book by Hermann Von Helmholtz, and got the idea to send sounds simultaneously over a wire instead, but Bell’s German was a little rusty, and the author had mentioned nothing about the transmission of sound via wire. He continued to pursue the solution, based on his false assumption, until he and his mechanic, Thomas Watson, built a device that could transmit sound over wires. The telephone was born in 1876, because Alexander Graham Bell didn't know it couldn't be done.

Artificial Veins

Scientists can grow blood vessels in a lab for use in coronary bypass or dialysis. The process involves taking smooth muscle cells from a human cadaver and grafting them onto tubes made of the material used in making dissolvable stitches.

Within eight to 10 weeks, the tubes degrade and a "fully formed vascular graft" remains. The veins have been successfully tested in animals and are soon to be tested in humans. They can last for a year in controlled conditions and have decreased potential for infection, obstruction, or clotting.

Our Globe

Forests cover 30% of earth's land surface, land covers 29.22% of earth surface, water covers 70.78% of earth surface (98% of that is in the oceans) (326 million trillion gallons of water) 1.6% in ice caps, .3.6% under land wells aquifers, .036 lakes and rivers,

80% of atmosphere is nitrogen most of the rest is oxygen
People occupy less than 2% of land mass - It mathematically does not seem possible we create pollution that changes the whole earth and the atmosphere above the earth.

Cashing in on a Name

James Cash Penney got his start as clerk working for a small Colorado chain called the Golden Rule. In 1902, his bosses offered him an ownership stake in the company if Penney would move to tiny Kemmerer, Wyoming, and start a Golden Rule store there. Penney took the offer and his store was so successful that by 1907, he was able to buy out the other two stores in the Golden Rule chain. By 1912, Penney had over 30 stores in the region, and he incorporated them all under a new name—the J.C. Penney Company.

Of Mice and Men

The ubiquitous computer mouse is 43 years old. It took six years to develop and was unveiled in December, 1968, although it did not become commercially available until the 1980s, with the advent of the personal computer. Douglas C. Engelbart and a group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute came up with the revolutionary way to communicate with computers.

In the fast changing computer world, it is almost unheard of to have one technology last this long. Its demise has been predicted for almost twenty years, but all the great minds have yet to find a way to replace it. Even the trackball, joy stick, and touch pad have not been able to replace the mouse. Touch screen is coming, as is voice control, but it will be a few more years until they find the right technology to unseat the mighty mouse. BTW - Mighty Mouse came along in 1942 and Mickey Mouse has been around a bit longer, since his debut in 1928 and he is still going strong.